Kul Fakir, whose real name was Ali Oymak, was an Alevi-Bektashi âşık (minstrel poet) born in the village of Kıreymir near Merzifon who died in Merzifon in 1938. His name also appears in the sources as Kul Fakır, Kul Fakır Ali and Kul Fakir Ali Ağa. Unable to read or write and earning his living as a farmer, he attached himself to Âşık Kul Hüseyin, who lived in Keçiköy near Gümüşhacıköy, and became the strongest voice of the minstrel branch named after him. Among the âşıks of the region covering Merzifon, Suluova and Gümüşhacıköy, known locally as "Gaziler Ovacığı", he is the one whose deyiş (sung mystical poems) are best known and most often recited by the zakirs in cem ceremonies. His poems lived largely in memory until they were collected and published as a book by Ali İhsan Aktaş and Sabri Yücel in 1991. In this category the twelve deyiş we have been able to reach are given on separate pages with the original text, a modern rendering and commentary.

His Life

Kul Fakir's date of birth is not certain. Most sources give 1873. The entry written by Orhan Fatih Kuşdemir for the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature), however, proposes an earlier date on the basis of Ali Cem Akbulut's research published in 2015: his attachment to Kul Hüseyin, who died in 1882, a surviving photograph and the ages of the people in it, and local accounts of those said to have been his contemporaries make it more likely that he was born in the early 1860s. His father was Musa Dede. He had no chance to go to school and spent most of his life farming. In one of his deyiş he says of himself, "Okumuşum aktan, karayı bilmem", "I have read from the white, I do not know the black", meaning that he could not read and that what he knew he read not from paper but from the heart. In later years he settled in Merzifon, where he died in 1938. His grave, a tomb known by his name, is in the courtyard of his house.

How he became an âşık is told locally as a legend. According to the account given by İsa Çolaker, which also appears in the collection by Nurbanu Karataş and Evrim Can İflazoğlu, the young Ali was a good wrestler who used to compete at weddings. When he went as a wrestler to a wedding in Keçiköy, Kul Hüseyin told him, "The true wrestler is the one who defeats his own self, who wrestles with his own self", and Ali, saying "Sadaksın pirim" ("you speak true, my master"), gave up wrestling and became his follower. According to Çolaker, the pen name Kul Fakır was also given to him by Kul Hüseyin.

His Minstrelsy and Circle

According to Kuşdemir, citing Akbulut, Kul Fakir's development as an âşık took place within Kul Hüseyin's world of thought. After Kul Hüseyin he attached himself to Cemalettin Çelebi (1862-1921), the çelebi of the Hacı Bektaş lodge, and after his death to his son Ali Haydar Efendi (1897-1966), regarding them as his spiritual masters. After Kul Hüseyin he showed the same devotion to İbrahim Ağa of Kumbaba. He formed friendships with âşıks and dervishes such as Sefil Ali of Kumbaba, Deli Boran, Deli Sadık of Hacet and Sefil Ahmet. He contributed to the training of many âşıks, among them Derviş Edna, Fakir Edna, Kul Hüseyin's son Halil Ağa, Biçare, Dervişoğlu, Mihneti, Sersem Köle, Müslüm Hoca, Noksanî and Sefil Mehmet. Akbulut considers him the dominant âşık of the Kul Hüseyin branch; he was greatly respected in his own time for his character and ideas, and he also influenced many âşıks and zakirs of later generations. His stories urging virtue, hard work and honesty are still alive in the region today.

He is said to have sung deyiş of every kind with a strong gift for improvisation and to have known how to play the saz. According to Ali Cem Akbulut's 2010 book Gazilerovacığı Âşıkları, the name "Gazilerovacığı âşıkları" given to the minstrels of the region was itself taken from a saying of Kul Fakir's. Fatih Çelebi's study published in 2026 examines the concept of "dost" (friend, the Beloved) in his poems and notes that Kul Fakir sang both deyiş recited by zakirs in the cem and düvazimam, hymns praising the Twelve Imams.

His devotion to Atatürk also has a place in local memory. According to an account collected by Karataş and İflazoğlu, one evening at a gathering in the village of Diphacı a man named Haydar Hoca offered him a cup first in the love of Sefil Ali and then of another saint; Kul Fakir poured both cups onto the ashes of the hearth. When the third was offered "for the love of Mustafa Kemal", he took the cup and drank, saying that he would drink it even if it were poison for the love of that great man and that, if it were possible, he would give him years of his own life. A deyiş of Kul Fakir's addressed to Mustafa Kemal Paşa has also come down to us.

Kul Fakir's whole life was spent in the Merzifon area of Amasya. The village of Kıreymir where he was born belongs to Merzifon, his master Kul Hüseyin lived in Keçiköy near Gümüşhacıköy, and he himself died and was buried in Merzifon. Harun Yıldız, in his article on the Alevi ocaks (hereditary holy lineages) of the Amasya region, mentions him as a dede descended from the Pîrî Baba ocak, and notes that the families living today in the Merzifon villages of Oymaağaç and Oymak are dede families of the Pîrî Baba ocak. The poet's surname, Oymak, is consistent with this link, but the sources do not explain the relationship. For Pîrî Baba and his tomb in Merzifon, see the article on the Pîrî Baba Tomb on this site. Kul Fakir is also mentioned among the Gaziler Ovacığı âşıks in the article on the minstrel tradition in Amasya on this site.

His Poetry

Kul Fakir's poems are deyiş and nefes sung in syllabic metre in the koşma and semai forms. In content they are built on the core concepts of Alevi-Bektashi Sufism: dying before death, the vow (ikrar) and escaping duality to reach unity, man as the essence of the universe and the "book to be read", love of the Ehl-i Beyt (the Prophet's family) and the Twelve Imams, and devotion to Hacı Bektaş Velî and Balım Sultan. Beside these he also has poems of counsel telling people how to live, and deyiş reproaching a beloved, a friend or companions on the path. İsa Çolaker writes that in these poems of counsel he sees the stance of a poet who teaches by example. Fatih Çelebi shows that the word "dost" in his poetry stands both for God and for a companion on the path.

For a long time his poems lived only in memory and in local manuscripts. Kuşdemir states that Kul Fakir is the âşık whose deyiş are found most often in the region's manuscripts and in the memory of zakirs. The collection of these deyiş is Ali İhsan Aktaş and Sabri Yücel's book Anadolu'da Bir Duru Kaynak Âşık Kul Fakır, published in Istanbul in 1991; most of those who have written on Kul Fakir take his poems from this book. We were not able to see the book itself. The twelve deyiş in this category are taken from the texts on a website collecting deyiş that cites this compilation as its source; some of the lines have also been compared with the quotations in the writings of Çolaker and Çelebi. Since Kul Fakir died in 1938, his poems are not under copyright.

The deyiş in this category are: "Seyrimde gezerken üç dilber gördüm", "Aşkın cemalin çıkmaz serimden", "Gönül arzuladı düştük yollara", "Gel gönül gidelim dost illerine", "Dertli gönlümü deftere", "Yüz yirmi dört bin nebinin sesi", "Şaha doğru giden kervan", "Her neyi ararsan vardır bu demde", "Ceddi Piri Baba bir bab sultanım", "Kemâl'in var olsun Mustafa Paşa", "Her sabah her sabah bülbülün sesi" and "Zamane halkının yanına varma".

State of the Sources

Most of what is known about Kul Fakir rests on two compilations: Aktaş and Yücel's book of 1991 and Ali Cem Akbulut's study of the Kul Hüseyin branch published in 2015. We were not able to see them directly; we cite Akbulut's information from the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü entry and from Fatih Çelebi's study. The discrepancy over his date of birth has been noted above. The sources also differ on his tie to the ocak: Yıldız presents him as a dede descended from Pîrî Baba, while Kuşdemir writes that although he was of an ocak family he did not serve as a dede and wandered around Merzifon. The two statements may well complement each other; it is possible that he came from the ocak without actually serving as a dede.

The frequency of the pen name also calls for care. Similar pen names such as Kul Fakir, Fakir Kul, Kul Fakirî and Fakir Edna are common among Alevi âşıks. The website from which we take his poems has itself since noted and removed the nefes "Dostun gül cemali cennettir bana", which it had earlier attributed to Kul Fakır, as belonging to another âşık, Kul Fakirî. For this reason only the deyiş that the sources state to belong to Kul Fakir of Merzifon have been included in this category.

Chronology

Early 1860s or 1873: Born in the village of Kıreymir near Merzifon.

Before 1882: Becomes a follower of Âşık Kul Hüseyin of Keçiköy.

1938: Dies in Merzifon and is buried in the courtyard of his house.

1991: His deyiş are collected and published by Ali İhsan Aktaş and Sabri Yücel.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Harun Yıldız, "Amasya Yöresi Alevî Ocakları", Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, vol. 4, no. 19, 2011.

Books

  • Orhan Fatih Kuşdemir, "Kul Fakir Ali, Ali Oymak", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 25.04.2019 (updated 08.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/kul-fakir-ali-ali-oymak
  • Fatih Çelebi, "Âşıklık Geleneğinin Temsilcilerinden Kul Fakir'in Eserlerinde 'Dost' Kavramı", Evrim Çağlayan (ed.), Kültür ve Güzel Sanatlar, Karabük: Karabük Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2026, pp. 1-9. https://kutuphane.karabuk.edu.tr/yuklenen/dosyalar/1263062026150047.pdf
  • Ali İhsan Aktaş, Sabri Yücel, Anadolu'da Bir Duru Kaynak Âşık Kul Fakır, Istanbul: Anadolu Matbaa ve Ticaret Kollektif Şirketi, 1991; texts: "Kul Fakır (Ali)", Alevi Deyişleri Nefesler Hakk Âşıkları, 21 August 2019 (updated 11 December 2020). https://www.deyisler-nefesler.com/kul-fakir-ali/
  • Ali Cem Akbulut, Âşık Kul Hüseyin ve Kul Hüseyin Kolu Âşıkları, Ankara: Dumat, 2015, pp. 214-215 (as cited in Kuşdemir 2019).
  • Nurbanu Karataş, Evrim Can İflazoğlu, Vardan Yoğa İki Irmak Arasında Aleviliğin İzleri, Çorum: HBVAKV, 2015 (as cited on the deyiş collection website).

Other sources

Online sources